The Contribution of the Catholic Magazine Espacio Laical and the Constitution to the Cuban Public Sphere

From Café Culture to Tweets

“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

Abstract: The normative ideal of a public sphere, as defined by Habermas, is the realm of social life where private people come together as a public to engage in debate over the general rules that govern our lives. This debate is grounded in procedural rationality where bracketing of social difference, inclusiveness, and the force of the better argument provide the basis for mutual understanding and decision making. These ideals are used to determine the extent to which 12 forest resource advisory groups in Alberta achieve the standards of a public sphere. Results from interview and survey research show that, minimally, public advisory groups qualify as a public sphere and are engaged in representative thinking. Control of these groups by forest companies, however, tends to de-politicize the deliberative process through information management and bureaucratic constraints. Some recommendations are made that may serve to re-energize civic debate over the future of our national forests. Resume: L'ideal normatif d'une sphere publique, tel que defini par Hebermas, est domaine de la vie sociale ou les membres du public se rassemblent pour discuter des regles generales qui gouernent not vies. Ce debat est ancre dans one rationalite procedurale par laquelle la mise entre parenthese des differences sociale, I'inclusion et la force du meilleur argument forment la base d'une comprehension mutuelle Ct des prises de decisions. Ces criteres ideaux sont utilises pour determiner dans quelle mesure les 12 groupes consultatifs sur les ressources forestieres en Alberta verificent les criteres qui caracterisent une sphere publique. Des entrevues et des recherches sur le terrain montrent que les groupes consultatifs repondent a ces criteres et refletent une pensee representative seulement de maniere minimale. Le controle de ces groupes par les compagnies forestieres, capendant, tend a depolitiser le processus de deliberation par la gestion de I'information et les contraintes bureaucratiques. Cet article conti ent des recommandations qui pourront servir a raviver les debats civiques concernant l'avenir de nos forets nationales Introduction Under what conditions can private people come together and discuss issues of public concern where rational argument, not social status, form the basis of informed consensus? This is the question Jurgen Habermas addresses in his attempt to develop the historical category of the public sphere (Habermas, 1989). Based originally in 17th and 18th Century Europe, the public sphere was manifested most ideally in the coffee houses of England. In modem society, however, the public sphere is thought of not as a single realm of publicness and openness but more pragmatically as a variety of institutions and formal procedures for precipitating a public sphere. According to theorists such as McCarthy (1992), the boundaries and structures of the places where debates about issues of public concern take place are influenced by history and culture and are therefore fluid. They are negotiated by specific communities according to a set of common needs and values. Some recent articles describing the role of deliberative democracy in managing a range of Canadian-based development projects, while highlighting their successes and failures, suggest a critical role for these public spheres (Richardson et al, 1993; Ali, 1997; Mehta, 1997; McDaniels et al., 1999). Another example of these modern public spheres can be found in the forest resource advisory groups of Alberta. These groups appear to meet some of the basic criteria of a public sphere in that they purport to provide space for a representative sample of citizens to become informed about and debate the veracity of existing forest management practices. In this paper, I undertake an empirically informed normative critique of these forest resource advisory groups as a public sphere. I begin by describing the category of a public sphere in historical context and then I delineate some of the contemporary revisions to Habermas's ideal that, arguably, renders it more flexible in confronting some of the complexities of modern society. …

Authorship and individualization in the digital public sphere

Women as radio audiences in Africa

Introduction. The paper analyses the Russian public sphere during World War I. Special attention is paid to the peculiarities of the functioning of the periodical press under the conditions of military censorship. The paper demonstrates how censorship restrictions regulated the discussion of issues that were of special political importance and transformed the publicity regime in the country. Methods and materials. The presented work is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The methodological framework for writing the article is the public sphere model proposed by J. Habermas, as well as special methodological approaches developed in the works of N. Luhmann. With a view to understanding and analysing the processes taking place in the public sphere, the research method of case studies is used. The source base of the study, in addition to publications in periodicals, consists of official documents regulating the activities of military censorship institutions in Russia. Analysis. The study reveals and demonstrates the possibilities of the periodical press to create a special sphere of publicity in the country through the information impact on the population. The article states that the press at the early stage of World War I did not differ in the variety of opinions, made no attempt to develop an objective overview of what was going on. First of all, the issues of the “fair war” and “inevitable victory” were brought up, which fueled the atmosphere of patriotic euphoria. At the same time, the military censorship suppressed any attempts to discuss the possibility of making peace between belligerent countries, even if they came from the supporters of military conflict, as it was the case with the article by P.A. Sorokin. The same trend was observed both in 1915 and 1916. Mentioning peace on the pages of the periodical press was equated with violations that the enemies could use to their advantage. Results. Thus, the press acted as only one, albeit very important, element of the public sphere within which the formation of public opinion took place during World War I. The mechanisms of the public sphere fulfilled one of the key tasks: due to its influence the population was mobilized in all areas of its practical activity. At the very beginning of the war, the press stood in solidarity with the authorities regarding the inevitability of the future victory of Russia and the need to protect the Fatherland from enemy attacks. The question of the duration of hostilities and the advent of peace was more complicated. However, as the war continued and the internal political crisis grew, the attitude towards the early conclusion of peace was changing, gradually transforming into hatred of all the actors of the war in the public sphere, with its own authorities taking the place of the enemy governments. Throughout the war, the pressure on the media by the censorship striving to maintain a pro-government publicity regime increased. However, at some point the transformation of the public sphere became irreversible and in many ways predetermined the events of 1917. The authors’ contribution. E.А. Antyukhova has defined the methodological approaches to the interpretation of the documents of the periodical press of World War I in terms of the public sphere, demonstrated its possibilities in the formation of public opinion. V.F. Blokhin has analyzed the existing points of view in the domestic and foreign historiography on the features of the functioning of the periodical press under the conditions of World War I, demonstrated the work of military censorship at different stages during the military conflict.

It is the contention of this chapter that a critical theory of public relations should involve some refl ection on the role that public relations plays within the public sphere. Public relations (PR) has become increasingly infl uential on activity within the public sphere, and hence in the formation of public opinion. In this chapter we shall seek to introduce the public sphere as a critical category – that is, both sociological and theoretical in its scope – and to understand the role of PR, especially within the domain of news media in North American and European democracies. The chapter will focus on the normative dimension of the account of the public sphere forwarded by the German social theorist Jurgen Habermas, which shapes critical theory understandings of the role of PR in the public sphere. The impact of PR on the public sphere will be discussed through the increased infl uence of PR in journalism, coming at the expense of original and independent reporting. Further to this, the competing theories of deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism will be surveyed, and we will see that the basis upon which we think critically about PR greatly diff ers depending upon which position we take up. Central here is the question of whether or not consensus is possible within the public sphere, or if contestation is rather inevitable.

The ideas expressed in this review were triggered by the African Renaissance symposium hosted by Sankofa Centre for the African Renaissance 26-29 March 1999. The Symposium was aimed amongst other things, to foster a cross fertilisation of ideas involving artists, poets, dancers, community leaders, the business community and intellectuals. Build-up to the symposium The climate to the symposium was built by predominantly traditional Zulu dance at the Durban Playhouse. This endeavour set the tone for the renewal of Kwa-Zulu-Natal, in particular, and the recovery of lost traditions of the Zulu people. This was manifested by the speeches which alluded to Shaka's era. Introduction Since Thabo Mbeki's speech am an African, African renaissance has proved to be a bizarre word in South African circles. This was shown by various gatherings held to promote this idea. When Sankofa made calls for this gathering, one took it be the continuation of the Johannesburg 1998 event, perhaps more inclusive than the intellectual and academic nature of the one held in Johannesburg. The inclusivity of the Symposium was evidenced by the presence of traditional poets, and dancers from rural areas, active participation of women from various sectors of the community. This prompted one to perceive the whole notion of the African renaissance as another kind of public sphere where the community participates. My conception of the notion of public sphere is inherited from Jurgen Habermas, who viewed the public sphere as that realm of social life where the exchange of information and views on questions of common can take place so that public opinion can be formed. It takes place, continues Habermas, when citizens gather as public bodies to discuss issues of the day, especially those of political concern (quoted in Dahlgren 1995:7). This results in collective decision-making. The presence of astute political leaders such as Thabo Mbeki, S'bu Ndebele and Jacob Zuma as political leaders, and, the presence of women qualifies this symposium to be a real political gathering. Central to the public sphere is the essence of talk--a symbol of participation which the idea of African renaissance seems to be all about. In this brief essay, I want to create a relationship between African Renaissance idea and the public sphere from the ideas gathered at the Sankofa symposium. Two trajectories of African renaissance What emerged during the symposium was the two trajectories of the concept of African renaissance. Though my focus will be the second trajectory, a brief look will be made to the first one and how it implicates the public sphere as a forum of interaction. 1. The first one essentially traditional, emerges out of the tone set the by the cultural function. This was advocated by the organisers of the event namely, Prof. P. Ntuli and Sbu' Ndebele. Throughout the symposium Ntuli emphasised the importance of colour black. `The return to the black gods. He asked the question: what is valuable in Africa that needs rebirth. According to him, African tools (technology). In this regard, the case of the Japanese was used as an example. In my view, Prof. Ntuli seems to ignore one thing: South Africa like the rest of Africa has many nationalities and cultures. As a result, it becomes difficult for one to talk about a homogenous African culture.. This is of course different from the Japanese situation- Japanese culture. Further more, culture is not static, but keeps on changing as it comes into contact with foreign external forces. While advocating for a pan-Africanist approach to African renaissance, Ntuli kept on quoting from European scholars, an irony on the side of the aspirant scholar advocating Africanism. This of course indicates that the definition of African renaissance cannot be bottled up in traditions and boundaries, but have to be understood as an interactive process. Ntuli's essentialist approach was confirmed by one of the commissions on Core courses for the African renaissance. …

In a critical but sympathetic reading of Habermas’s work (1984, 1987a, 1987b, 2003), Luke Goode (2005) recently sought to rework his theory of deliberative democracy in an age of mediated and increasingly digital public spheres. Taking a different approach, Alan McKee (2005) challenged the culture- and class-bound strictures of Habermasian rationalism, instead pursuing a more radically pluralist account of postmodern public spheres. The editors of this special section of Media, Culture & Society invited us to discuss our differing approaches to the public sphere. Goode holds that the institutional bases of contemporary public spheres (political parties, educational institutions or public media) remain of critical importance, albeit in the context of a kaleidoscopic array of unofficial and informal micro-publics, both localized and de-territorialized. In contrast, McKee sustains a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ toward the official, hegemonic institutions of the public sphere since they tend to exclude and delegitimize discourses and practices that challenge their polite middle-class norms. McKee’s recent research has focused on sexual cultures, particularly among youth (McKee, 2011). Goode’s recent work has examined new social media spaces, particularly in relation to news and public debate (e.g. Goode, 2009; Goode et al., 2011). Consequently, our discussion turned to a domain which links our interests: after Goode discussed some of his recent research on (in)civility on YouTube as a new media public sphere, McKee challenged him to consider the case of pornographic websites modelled on social media sites.1 He identifies a greater degree of ‘civility’ in these pornographic sibling sites than on YouTube, requiring careful consideration of what constitutes a ‘public sphere’ in contemporary digital culture. Such sites represent an environment that shatters the opposition of public and private interest, affording public engagement on matters of the body, of intimacy, of gender politics, of pleasure and desire – said by many critics to be ruled out of court in Habermasian theory. Such environments also trouble traditional binaries between the cognitive and the affective, and between the performative and the deliberative. In what follows we explore the differences between our approaches in the form of a dialogue. As is often the case, our approaches seemed less at odds after engaging in conversation than may have initially appeared. But important differences of emphasis remain.

The emergence and evolution of the internet have reshaped the landscape of political communication and discourse, transforming it into a public sphere that transcends geographical boundaries and traditional hierarchies. This paper explores the role of the Internet as a platform for political engagement, communication, and mobilization. Reviewing different theories of the public sphere and empirical studies, it examines how digital technologies have democratized access to information, enabled diverse voices to participate in political discussions, and facilitated collective action. The internet's potential as a public political sphere is accompanied by challenges and controversies. Issues such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, and the spread of disinformation raise concerns about the quality and inclusivity of online political discussions. Moreover, the concentration of power among a few tech giants poses risks to democratic governance and freedom of expression. Despite these challenges, the Internet also presents opportunities for enhancing democratic practices and civic engagement. Platforms for citizen journalism, online petitions, and social media activism empower individuals to hold governments and institutions accountable. Moreover, digital tools enable marginalized groups to amplify their voices and advocate for social justice causes. If people can freely connect to the Internet without corporate, economic, and governmental restrictions, then the Internet can function as an open and democratic public sphere. This paper concludes by discussing future directions for research and policy interventions aimed at strengthening the Internet's role as a vibrant and inclusive public political sphere. This paper concludes by discussing future directions for research and policy interventions aimed at strengthening the Internet's role as a vibrant and inclusive public political sphere.

This paper examines how social media is providing a new digital public sphere and shaping the democratic process in Ghana. It draws on Habermas's public sphere theory to explore how social media has occupied a digital public sphere that creates spaces for democratic participation and public discourse. The paper reviews relevant literature on social media use as a tool of political communication, the new digital public sphere, and the democratic process in Ghana and globally. Since Ghana's return to democratic rule in 1992, the media landscape was initially dominated by traditional state and private media outlets. However, the rise of digital and social media over the past two decades has transformed the public sphere, creating online spaces for citizens to engage in political deliberations and share diverse viewpoints. The paper examines how social media played a crucial role in Ghana's 2020 elections, facilitating citizen political participation, public opinion formation, and activism despite COVID-19 restrictions on physical gatherings. Social media enabled political parties to campaign online, citizens to voice concerns, and interest groups to mobilize protests and demand accountability. While acknowledging the digital divide and attempts by political elites to control narratives, the paper argues that social media's interactive and connective structure has enhanced the public sphere by dismantling dominant discourses and amplifying alternative perspectives. The paper concludes by recommending robust fact-checking mechanisms and collaborative efforts from government, civil society, media, and interest groups to strengthen the digital public sphere's role in consolidating Ghana's democracy. Overall, it highlights social media's transformative impact on Ghana's public sphere and democratic processes.

In this paper, I challenge the claim of the universalistic public sphere by providing contextual complexity of the national and local public sphere in Indonesia. In the original version of the Habermasian public sphere, people sat together in the salon and the café to exchange their ideas, sustaining the secular, capitalistic, and individualistic public sphere. However, further critics have shown the problems of putting secular ideas as the central force of the public sphere, particularly as it overlooks the complexity of the public sphere in religious contexts. These critics are particularly relevant to understanding the Indonesian public sphere in which the Muslim-majority population aims to dominate public life, as the religiously motivated political agenda has a further consequence for democratisation in Indonesia, which has been heralded as a prime example of harmony between Islamic values and Western democracy. At the same time, digitalisation has facilitated a religious revival in the national public sphere, combining religious sentiment within a highly individualised and digitalised society. This paper analyses the challenges of the digital divide in the local public sphere of pondok pesantren (Indonesian Islamic boarding schools). With a lack of digital access and democratic practices in day-to-day pondok pesantren life, communalistic religious practices have dominated the public sphere of these boarding schools. Within such complexity, this paper deliberates on how the local and national contexts in Indonesia shed light on the multidimensionality of the public sphere.

The public sphere is that realm of social life where individuals can freely discuss societal questions and thereby shape public opinion. It constitutes an intermediate area between the state and civil society, in its narrowest sense, that is, where social relations are regulated by the market. It encompasses different levels – from a spatial concept that indicates the social sites where social actors exchange meanings, to the philosophical concept of “public use of reason,” which characterizes the essence of enlightenment. The boundary between public and private, together with the relative weight of each in contemporary society, is highly contentious and depends on several economic, political, cultural, and technological factors. The recent advent of “virtual space” has raised the question of to what extent the Internet can provide the foundation for a new public sphere.

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere: Postmodern “Truthiness” and Civic Engagement

Nowadays with the ever-increasing growth in social media platforms and the creation of different forms of online activism, the word known as “Campaign” has become a familiar and useful term in people’s everyday lives. Campaigns with all kinds of social aims especially using Hashtags are run on social media platforms by individuals, charities, NGOs, governments, municipalities and brand companies and with peoples' participation and value co-creation, appropriate results are achieved and the desired changes are made in people’s attitudes and the behavior of individuals, businesses, or governments. Therefore, there seems to be a new form of a virtual public sphere where there is action, dialog and social mobilization, which leads to the formation of public opinion and social change in the digital era. In this paper, using a critical review method, we are going to investigate a public sphere's literature and study its core features (1. access, 2. dialog, 3. action, and 4. public opinion) in digital campaigns and online platforms. Then, in the last part, we are going to map those in a real case study in order to further clarify the arguments and show how social campaigns on online platforms contribute to the formation of a public sphere in the digital era.